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Sunday, April 2, 2017

The Role of Three C’s – Caste, Class and Communalism in Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election

Dr. Manjur Ali

In recently concluded round of
state assembly elections, Uttar Pradesh results have been the most astounding
as well as crucial for future course of national politics. The scale of BJP’s
victory has confounded many observers, especially in view of no perceptible
Modi wave as was the case during 2014 Lok Sabha elections. So how does one make
sense of these results? Should one view it as a verdict in favor of
demonetization by poor? Is it endorsement of heady cocktail of ‘nationalism
plus development’ as BJP preaches? Or is it an endorsement of its Hindutva
politics? Present article is an attempt to interrogate the role of ‘Caste,
Class and Communalism’ in UP elections to have a nuanced understanding of the
verdict. (Vikalp Editorial Team)

Polarization or no
polarization:

Many scholars have argued that
the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) swing in 16th Lok Sabha election was not due to
anti-minority polarization but dissatisfaction with incumbent government. How
far is it valid?

Since the victory of BJP in
Lok Sabha elections of 2014 (which was preceded by ghastly Muzaffarnagar riots
of 2013 and which in fact helped BJP win massive 73 LS seats); numbers of
attacks on Muslims have taken place across the country. In 2015 Uttar Pradesh,
155 communal riots took place, which is an increase of 17 percent from previous
year (not to mention killing of Mohammad Akhlaq and campaigns over beef ban,
Love Jihad etc.)

However, media group, print
and electronic, and right-wing economists have continuously shown their apathy
towards the ill-treatment with Muslim community. They have been denying
pan-India attack on minorities by calling it as the act of fringe elements.
There insensitivity is basically derived from their theoretical approach,
neo-liberalism, which forced them to insulate development from politics. They
do not see the Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh’s (RSS) agenda to maintain the
Brahminical hegemony under the Hindu upper castes in the name of Hindu unity.
Anti-minoritism is the kernel of this process. So far as RSS and Hindutva
forces continue the support for neo-liberal market based ‘Development’, the
intelligentsia prefers to look the other way. It is also another matter that
this intelligentsia shares a certain degree of affinity and comfort with upper
caste hegemonic cultural agenda of RSS and others as this overlaps well with
its own sense of hegemony which is articulated through notions of ‘meritocracy’.
It is in this theoretical framework one has to see the recent election in Uttar
Pradesh.

Caste, religion and class
interplay in UP Elections 2017

Let us see how caste, religion
and class interplay in the context of assembly election. First, let’s start
with aspect of class and how money power[i]
has undermined the democratic spirit of electoral process itself. All the
political parties in state had preferred rich candidates, upper class. In fact,
those parties who proclaim to be the vanguard of Dalit and Other Backward
Castes (OBCs) have fielded richer candidates. BSP’s 83.8 percent candidates
have assets worth one crore and above. 79.2 percent of Samajwadi Party’s
candidate had assets one crore and above. BJP, the party with difference,
followed the list with 78.9 percent of its candidates were Crorepati. The
financial details of the winning candidates show that 322 (80 per cent) are
Crorepati, up from 271 or 67 per cent of those who won the 2012 assembly
elections in UP. The average of assets per MLA who won in the Uttar
Pradesh 2017 assembly elections is Rs 5.92 crore whereas the average asset
for each candidate who contested in the 2017 assembly elections was Rs 1.90
crore. In 2012, the average assets per MLA analyzed was Rs 3.36 crore.

The
informal logic put forth by the political parties for selecting richer
candidates is his or her capacity to self-bear the financial burden during
election. Political parties see the bigger role of money in the election
process. Researchers have also argued that voters do see winnability of the
richer candidates and their performance and engagement with local
administration are in direct proportion to their wealth. According to Harry
Stevens, across 689 constituencies in the assembly elections in Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand, and Uttar Pradesh, the wealthiest
candidate won 33.5 percent of the time, compared to just 24.6 percent for the
second wealthiest candidate and 17 percent for the third wealthiest. However,
the average percent of winnability of richer candidates in Uttar Pradesh is
29.3 percent. That means there are other factors at work. What are those
factors? Why upper class candidates of SP and BSP had lesser chance of
winnability in 2017?

The
answer may be the BJP’s candidates’ agenda of development had top-up of Hindutva
political campaign. One cannot see BJP’s development separate from their
Hindutva politics. These two are inseparable.
Depending on time and space RSS/BJP uses them separately for deception. It did
not come as surprise when Yogi Adityanath (who now has become Chief Minister of
UP) took centre stage to polarize the voters. Yogi campaigned in Western,
Central and Eastern region of the state extensively with communal speeches. PM
Modi’s speeches too helped in polarization through his communal rhetoric of shamshan vs kabristan and Eid vs Diwali[1].
Modi and Yogi have complimented each other –in their meta-narrative of
nationalism and development, with anti-Muslim polarization.

The
upper castes/class Hindutva politics has succeeded in UP over past few years due
to the most of the backward and SCs castes supported BJP. Why? To understand
this support one has to grasp BJP’s social principle of development. BJP’s slogan of development is “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas”. But, it is
also ‘exclusive’ and should be read differently. This slogan, in Uttar Pradesh
it means that Hindu OBCs and Dalit, except Yadav and Jatav for some time,
should accept hegemonic leadership of upper castes, who should and shall
control resources. They will distribute, after cornering major share, among the
aspirant groups. In this model, upper castes will distribute resources to MBC
and Dalit by excluding certain dominant castes such as Yadav and Jatav and
religious minority, especially Muslim. ‘Sabka
Saath Sabka Vikas’ of BJP is in a sense ‘social contract’ between hegemonic
social caste and aspiring MBCs and Dalit. This contract has galvanized most
of the poor voters from backward and lower castes in favor of BJP.

Why
political parties such as SP & BSP which arose from social justice movement,
have failed to challenges BJP? This can be discussed at two levels – one in
terms of electoral strategy and another is their role in delivery of social
justice.

The founders
of social justice movements in India
had aimed at annihilation of caste system as their mission with anti-Brahmanism
as its centrality of political and social action. Phule’s book ‘Gulamgiri’ not
only emboldened voice from the margins but also provided anti-Brahminical
outlook as a political direction to the future generations. E.V.R Periyar had
attacked core constructs of Hindu religion –its gods/goddess, rituals and
mythological texts. On the other hand, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, a Dalit from Maharashtra, has carried forward the work of Phule and
excelled it. Although, crusaders against the caste system were belonging to
different castes and legal categories but they all had common understanding
about the source, means and mission. They identified laws of Manu as source of
their problems, which manifest in form of caste system with four Varnas and untouchable.

However,
the two parties, SP and BSP, in UP which came up with the agenda of social
justice indulged in power politics. Once political power became main objective,
the mission of Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar of annihilation of caste was abandoned
by both SP & BSP in practice. So much was the compulsion to grab power, that
initial rhetoric of anti-Brahmanism and anti-caste of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP)
later gave way to compromises reflected in slogans such as “Haanthi Nahi Ganesh hai, Brahma, Vishnu,
Mahesh Hai”. On the other hand, post-Mandal, OBCs emerged on political
scene with ambition and in a very different avatar.They had no motive of change in caste
based structures.SP, which has been
representing these aspirations, emerged as a vanguard party a new dominant OBC caste
namely Yadav. And, hence instead of strengthening the larger Bahujan politics,
SP and BSP turned into political rivals. This weakened the opposition to BJP
electorally as well as ideologically.

On the
strategic part, Akhilesh Yadav (AY) focused too much on the narrative of development,
falling into the upper class/caste trap, without understanding that politics
cannot be separated from it. BJP countered SP’s development campaign by caste
and communal politics. BJP propagated that whatever “Kam” (work) that has taken place, Yadav and Muslims have
appropriated all the benefits. Interestingly, RSS/BJP also propagated that
whatever work has happened in the State, it is all because of Modi. AY was like
an electricity transformer, whose role is to transfer electricity, rather than
generating it. Secondly, despite SP-Congress alliance, both fielded 15
candidates against each other. This dented the image of alliance. Thirdly,
family feud in SP, although bring AY as a strong leader, had disrupted
organization at the local level.

On the
other hand, BSP committed two mistakes – overconfidence about the consolidation
of Dalit votes and too much focus on Muslims. BSP thought that the recent
attacks on Dalits in Gujarat and other places would
lead to consolidation of Dalits in its favor. But, Dalit as homogeneous vote
group is a myth. The major beneficiary of state resources has been
Chamar/Jatav. The uneven development has forced various castes to look for
various political options. Table 2 reveal intra-group gaps government job. They
have better representation in government jobs as compared to Pasi
community.

This
has been used by BJP and SP as propaganda to make inroad among non-Jatav
Dalits. The induction of R.K. Chaudhary, former BSP and a Pasi leader, into BJP
government was part of that strategy. Krishna Raj, another leader from Pasi
community from Uttar Pradesh, was inducted in BJP government in Union. In this context, it was a challenging task for Ms.
Mayawati to consolidate other Dalit
under her party banner in the election. The SCs voters, in reserved
constituencies, behave differently than in non-reserved seats. In reserved
seats intra-Dalits rivalry divides their votes.

Source: ECI.nic.in. Figure in brackets are total
reserved seats. * One SC seat won by AD. This time 2 seats were reserved for ST
– Dudhi and Obra.

Table 3
show that the BSP has been facing tough
competition, from SP and BJP, in reserved constituencies of Uttar Pradesh.

Also, the idea of Dalit-Muslim
(DM) unity should and must move beyond practicality and immediate electoral
success. At present, it was top-down approach where BSP allocated ticket to Ashraf Muslims. However, BSP lacked an
important agents i.e. Pyrveekar or
political fixers which brings votes from the community. Mayawati was relying on
Muslim anxiety and anger against the SP and BJP for her electoral gain. On the
other hand, at many places Dalit voters have voted to BJP candidates as they
found Muslim candidates from BSP as offensive in the communally charged
atmosphere.

At the end, one can say that
progressive forces have to engage with the meta-narrative and micro-level
issues where RSS has hegemonic presence. Nationalism, Hindutva, development and
MBC and Dalit aspiration needs a relook. Currently, RSS has successfully
mainstreamed the fringe. RSS has been successful in transforming nationalism
into Hindu nationalism, development into Hindutva model of development and
casteism into “good” caste system. Hence, a two pronged strategy has to be
adopted. First, progressive forces must attack neo-liberal model of development
which put forth fight for the margin, rather fight from the margin by artificially
creating scarcity of resources. Secondly, progressive forces must include
annihilation of caste in their agenda and start afresh from where Ambedkar
left.

[ii]Although,
in 2014 Revised Rules 90 of the Conduct of Election
Rules, 1961, ECI increased the limit to 70 lakhs from 40 lakhs for bigger
States. For Legislative Assembly, amount increased to 28 Lakh from 16 lakh. In
smaller States, for Lok Sabha election the ceiling is increased to 54 lakhs and
for Legislative Assembly it is now 20 lakh. But, financial bar put up by the Election
Commission of India (ECI) seems too little. This prompts the debate of state
funding of election in India

Table 1: Election
Expenditure by Central Government for all fifteen Lok
Sabha Elections is as follows

Year

Expenditure
(In Cr Rs)

No of
Electors

Expenditure per elector (In Rs)

Polling
Station

1952

10.45

17,32,12,343

0.6

1,96,084

1957

5.9

19,36,52,179

0.3

2,20,478

1962

7.32

21,63,61,569

0.3

2,38,031

1967

10.8

25,02,07,401

0.4

2,43,693

1971

11.61

27,41,89,132

0.4

3,42,918

1977

23.04

32,11,74,327

0.7

3,73,910

1980

54.77

35,62,05,329

1.5

4,36,813

1984-85
$

81.51

40,03,75,333

2

5,06,058

1989

154.22

49,89,06,129

3.1

5,80,798

1991-92
#

359.1

5,11,533,598

7

5,91,020
*

1996

597.34

59,25,72,288

10

7,67,462

1998

666.22

60,58,80,192

11

7,73,494

1999

947.68

61,95,36,847

15

7,74,651

2004

1113.88

67,14,87,930

17

6,87,402

2009

846.67

71,69,85,101

12

8,30,866

* Excludes J&K in 1991-92.
Elections were held separately for States of Assam & Punjab in 1985.

# Elections were held
separately for State of Punjab
in 1992. Source: PIB, ECI, GoI, 11 March 2014

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